


Shattered

by amagicbeyond



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 10x09, M/M, Mark of Cain!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25639243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amagicbeyond/pseuds/amagicbeyond
Summary: Cas shouldn’t be looking at him like that. A smile twitches uninvited at Dean’s mouth, and he buries it in another bite of Cas’ burger.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	Shattered

**Author's Note:**

> Gosh I hope everyone reading this remembers what happened in 10x09 because I sure didn't when I found this ficlet again. Have fun figuring it out from the context clues! Originally posted on Tumblr in Feb 2015.

Cas shouldn’t be looking at him like that.

A smile twitches uninvited at Dean’s mouth, and he buries it in another bite of Cas’ burger.

He _knows_ the look, even if he doesn’t believe it.It’s fondness, as if Dean is something you could be fond of, instead of a ticking time bomb, a human mess, demon-tainted. He hides his smile because he doesn’t want Cas to see how happy it makes him, that an angel of the lord, shiny and imperfect and a bit of a dweeb, could look at him like that. He counts the years they’ve known each other and he’s surprised to find they’re so few. Six years. Six years and one eternal purgatory.

“I’m extremely old,” Cas says.

Six years should be nothing to an angel. And yet-

_The people who love me_ , Dean had said, had vocalized it for the first time, to some kid whose life he destroyed a long time ago, some kid who needed to hear it. _They pulled me back from that edge._

Cas’ impossibly strong arms had wrapped around him and done just that.

It feels like _hope_. Dean takes another bite and lets himself pretend, just a little while longer.

*

Cas shouldn’t be looking at him like that.

It’s wrong, it’s _wrong_ , but it’s utterly deserved, and Dean knows it, and he’s broken now, it’s done. Cas’ face holds only shock, and the illusion has been shattered, and Dean is a monster, Dean was right all along. He doesn’t deserve tender eyes, he doesn’t deserve soft smiles and fondness and shared memories and hopeful futures. He’s owed this look instead, this fear and disgust, this appalling creature he’s become. He tastes blood on his tongue.

_I didn’t mean to_.

He says it to Sam, and Sam is not listening, but he needs them to know it, he needs them to understand. He is a monster, but he doesn’t want to be. 

_You promised me, Cas_.

Cas didn’t. Cas hadn’t said a word. Cas does not reach for a blade.

Cas turns his back.

Dean slumps into Sam’s arms.

*

Cas looks at him now, and it’s with the careful, contained pain of a loved one at a deathbed. Dean can’t bear the weight of it for very long, it speaks of _could have been_ and _almost_ and _nevermore_. He should be glad that Cas can see him truly now, the gallows that wait at the end of his path, but he isn’t, he unfairly wants a burger-in-a-basket at a nautical-themed truck stop, he wants to see that look in Cas’ eyes, the one he wore before Dean broke the spell. It was the best goddamned burger he ever ate.

Dean pastes on a smile, and so does Cas, and they both know it.

There is nothing else they can do.


End file.
